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NTTA board hears AI strategic plan; staff proposes governance, center of excellence and phased roadmap
Summary
NTTA staff presented a concept for an artificial intelligence strategic plan on May 21 that would create a governance framework, a center of excellence and a phased applications roadmap for pilots in customer service, security, asset management and traffic operations.
NTTA staff presented an artificial intelligence strategic plan concept to the board on May 21 that laid out governance, data governance, procurement and an applications roadmap aimed at piloting and scaling AI across the agency.
Jeff (last name not specified in the transcript), who presented the plan as an NTTA staff member, summarized the vision: “The vision is to responsibly deploy AI,” and described three primary goals: increase efficiency and revenue while decreasing cost, improve safety and reliability, and enhance customer service.
Jeff told the board that NTTA already uses several machine‑learning tools in limited ways, including voice analytics for recorded contact‑center calls, optical character recognition used in toll collection, and wrong‑way detection in traffic operations. He said the agency also holds a limited number of Copilot (generative AI) licenses for content creation and analysis and is considering broader deployments tied to a procurement and intake review process.
Key elements of the proposed framework include a steering committee composed of NTTA leadership, a center of excellence with cross‑departmental representatives, formalized procurement and contract checklists that address vendor expertise and data governance, and an administrative procedure that lists permitted users and permitted applications. Jeff said the agency would use existing IT intake processes and Horatio Porter’s team to review AI‑related procurements.
On timing, Jeff said staff would finalize an administrative procedure, stand up the center of excellence and produce an application roadmap over the next three to four months. He characterized the roadmap as phased—“pilot, limited, and full”—and described examples for each domain: an advanced contact center to support agents and customers (customer service), new asset management capabilities after a planned vendor rollout, and an advanced traffic management system under reprocurement that could enable traffic‑operations AI capabilities.
Board members welcomed the governance focus and urged flexibility. Director Nye thanked staff and said governance should be flexible because the technology is evolving rapidly, asking rhetorically, “If you had to say right now, what percentage of AI is deployed in our overall business operations? Is it what? 10%?” Jeff replied, “It'd be less than that.”
Staff said next steps include finalizing procedures, building the center of excellence and using the roadmap to prioritize pilot applications and procurement checklists.
